Delirium
by chivalrysdead
Summary: Cordelia receives a late night visit.


Title: Delirium  
Author: Emily  
Rating: PG 13  
Category: Xander/Cordelia  
Summary: Cordelia receives a late night visit.  
Spoilers/Timeline: Set sometime after the episode where everyone finds out about Xander/Faith. can't remember the name right now. Spoilers for season three and that's all.  
  
Cordelia Chase sat up in bed. Typical - the first time she'd actually gotten to sleep in weeks and some weirdo starts knocking on the door. Lately she hadn't been sleeping. Kept waking up in the middle of the night. It was all that damn patrolling with Buffy and everyone. Her internal clock must have got messed up. She reached into the drawer at her bedside table, sure that there were a couple of stakes in there. Cordy had never planned on having stakes in her drawer. Make up, underwear, even the occasional book, but stakes? Stakes had never been in her plans.  
  
A vampire probably wouldn't knock, she considered but it could be some other hell creature. Which probably wouldn't knock either actually. She pushed the duvet off her, carrying the stake as she got up You never knew in Sunnydale. Cordelia caught a glimpse of herself in her mirror and made a face. Ugh, not a two in the morning person here, she thought. She put the stake down and picked up a hairbrush instead, brushing her hair as she padded downstairs to the front door. Whoever was there could just wait while she fixed her hair . Cordy slipped a strap of her top back onto her shoulder and smoothed the tracksuit bottoms she'd been sleeping in down. She was good to see people and hey the hairbrush was probably just as effective a weapon as the stake would have been in case it wasn't people.  
  
Cordy pulled the door handle open, holding the hairbrush in one hand cautiously. She dropped the hairbrush down to her side when she saw who it was. Now she kinda wished it had been a creature of the night. At least then she'd have known what to do. Xander standing at her door at two in the morning just wasn't something she'd ever prepared herself for.  
  
She was pretty damn surprised - to say the least. After a while the phone messages had stopped, he'd stopped trying to talk to her and all they exchanged now was the occasional sarcastic conversation. Just like before. Except now it sometimes made her wanna cry.  
  
Most recently though he'd slept with Faith. Slutty Faith with hair that so wasn't her natural colour. Cordelia hadn't quite believed it at first. What would Faith see in Xander? Not whatever Cordy had seen in him. Faith hardly knew him and then wham, the girl's jumping his bones. Maybe she'd just been horny. Faith seemed like she dug the use 'em and lose 'em policy. So had Cordy for that matter, only not to the extent Faith did. Hell, she was still a virgin. Pathetic for someone as beautiful and popular as her but there it was. Not that she'd ever admit it to anyone of course, let alone Xander. Cordy mentally rolled her eyes at herself. All of this didn't matter. She'd thought she was in love with him for God's sake. I must have been deluded, Cordelia decided, snapping back to reality.  
  
" What are you doing here?" She demanded. " Is this some demon thing 'cause if it is I don't care. Look at a clock, Xander"  
  
" It's not a demon thing. I wanted to talk to you." Xander said and again with the surprised.  
  
" Can't it wait?" Cordy asked, trying to hide her surprise. He shook his head and she sighed.  
  
"I guess you can come in." She gestured towards the living room. Nearest room, it'd do. Xander followed her and they sat down on the sofa. Cordy folded her arms across her chest and looked at him, waiting.  
  
" I slept with Faith" Xander blurted out, not knowing why he felt this sudden need to tell her.  
  
" Yeah I know" Cordelia replied indifferently and he felt stupid for even turning up. Xander carried on all the same.  
  
" I wanted to tell you - " He started to say aware that the words were coming out all wrong. Xander was almost grateful for her interruption.  
  
" Let me know personally so I could what, congratulate you? Way to go Xander, you finally scored" She snapped and Cordy tried not to sound upset. Do the ice queen deal, like she didn't care. She did that a lot. Once she'd thought Xander had been the one person she could be...real with. Of course that was back in the deluded period of my life, Cordelia reminded herself. I was delirious.  
  
" No! I don't know, why I came here. I guess I just regretted it wasn't with you." He said seriously and shrugged. He'd been drowning anyway but now, now he was in over his head.  
  
Her eyes widened and of all the things she'd expected him to say - like 'yeah that's it Cordy' or some kind of mumbled 'sorry' - this hadn't been on the list.  
  
" Oh" Cordelia said softly. Oh God, what was she supposed to say. Some sarcastic comment would have been fitting she supposed but nothing came to her and even if it had she wouldn't have said it. How could she? So instead she just spoke.  
  
" Sorry for yelling at you" She mumbled. " But Xander it's the middle of the night and you just come here and tell me this. I don't know what I'm supposed to say."  
  
Cordelia looked at him with wide eyes, confused. Xander shrugged again.  
  
" I'm sorry."  
  
She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him. " For what? Waking me up? Sleeping with Faith?"  
  
" Both?" Xander suggested.  
  
" It's not like I care what you do with Faith." Cordelia said hastily. " We broke up, remember? The whole cheating on me deal?" She looked down, wondering why she was getting so upset.  
  
" You want me to apologise for that too? " Xander asked.  
  
" No!" She said, still upset and still confused as to why.  
  
" I am sorry about Faith."  
  
" I don't care."  
  
" But I'm sorry. Cordy, you can't deny Faith is a very attractive woman."  
  
She raised her eyebrows in his direction." Xander? Appealing to my inner lesbian, not working here."  
  
" You have an inner lesbian?" Xander asked, interested.  
  
Cordelia rolled her eyes. " Just like how somewhere deep inside you have an inner man. Apparently." She said coldly.  
  
Hurt flashed in Xander's eyes and she ignored the slight tugging feeling of guilt. " Do you always have to be such a bitch?" Xander snapped at her.  
  
" So I'm a bitch now, huh?" Cordy asked. She was surprised at how much that remark stung. She was Cordelia Chase, damn it. Queen C; whatever that meant. She was supposed to be a bitch and these things definitely weren't supposed to sting.  
  
" Cordy I didn't mean that" He saw the look on her face. The vulnerable look that rarely crossed her face. He could count on the fingers of one hand the times he'd seen her so raw. And one of those times was the one he couldn't forget. Every time he thought back to that day Xander had to wonder if those few sweet stolen kisses with Willow had been worth it.  
  
She tried to find a suitably composed expression but none came. Xander's hand reached out tentatively for her shoulder and Cordy didn't pull away. She shrugged a little. " Why shouldn't you?"  
  
Cordy was relieved that she could speak. She ignored the way her voice trembled and the strange burning feeling in her eyes. Cordelia Chase didn't cry. It was one of her rules, way up near the top, right there with being a bitch. Cordy wasn't going to break that rule even though hell, she'd already cried about Xander. But not again. She reached desperately for some kind of calm and found her head leaning against him. Fitting perfectly into the hollow of the side of his neck.  
  
" Cordy" Xander started to speak, his hand settling on her shoulder, itching to touch that hair. He didn't really know what he was doing. This was all unfamiliar to him. Xander remembered - mostly closets, but making out in her car too and at parties but he didn't remember just sitting here in peace with a kind of balance. Maybe if he'd listened some in English class he'd know better words to describe this feeling but he didn't and he doesn't. All he knew was that all of a sudden he wanted to reach out and touch her hair, or kiss her or hold her. Oh he didn't know what he was doing. Not at all. Maybe that was okay though. Maybe this moment is what it's meant to be like, Xander thought. He wondered if he was in love with her. If this was what he'd been missing for so long. That's why I came here, he thought dazedly.  
  
Oh God, Cordy thought, panic taking hold of her. This felt right. This, just sitting here with him, with his hand warm on her shoulder, her head nestled against him. It shouldn't feel right she thought. I didn't invite him in and talk to him just to end up here. I don't even know where here is. That's what scares the hell out of me. Delusional, Cordelia thought firmly. Fucking delirious. It didn't help. She lifted her head off his shoulder hurriedly. This was not the time to start falling head over feet for him again. Like trying not to will help, she thought dazedly.  
  
Cordelia ran a hand through her hair and felt a pang as Xander's hand moved from her shoulder. Christ - Cordy did not feel pangs. She was sure of that.  
  
" Why did you come here?" Cordelia asked softly, ignoring the pangs. They would go away eventually, she assured herself. She noticed that Xander looked equally dazed from that moment and couldn't quite work out whether that was good or not. " And don't try and tell me you don't know. Xander you can't just come to my house in the middle of the night and talk to me after everything that's happened."  
  
" I can't just not talk to you and act like nothing ever happened with us." Xander said equally softly.  
  
She shrugged. " You seem to have been doing a pretty good job of that recently."  
  
" So have you. Cor, this is killing me."  
  
" Hence screwing Faith? Sure, makes sense."  
  
" Look at you and Wesley" Xander protested.  
  
" What me and Wesley? Just because I flirt with some guy does not mean I have sex with him. I have some morals, Xander. Unlike certain hooker like friends of yours."  
  
" So all you've done is flirted with him?"  
  
" Duh yes. But you, you and the hooker like friends. Faith's practically the Sunnydale bicycle!" She exclaimed.  
  
" I thought that was you?" Xander asked good naturedly.  
  
Cordy arched a delicate eyebrow. " Don't take that tone with me" She said sweetly. " And for the record I have never been cycling. I sure wasn't a bicycle."  
  
" You haven't been cycling, not ever?" Xander looked at her, genuinely surprised at this. She kept his gaze, with serious eyes.  
  
" It's not like you're an experienced cyclist Xander. You've only cycled once." Cordy pointed out.  
  
He nodded. " Maybe I could take you cycling some time."  
  
Cordelia smirked. "Oh please, you wish."  
  
There was no malice in her voice though and Xander smiled and then Cordy's smirk deepened into a real smile. " So you were jealous of Wesley, huh?" She asked.  
  
" I wasn't jealous" Xander protested.  
  
She smiled again. " That's sweet you were jealous."  
  
" I wasn't...you think I'm sweet?" Xander questioned.  
  
" Putting aside a whole bunch of things, yes"  
  
He smiled and she kept her smile and then eventually they were just looking at each other. Smiles fading till there was just lips. I don't want him to kiss me, Cordy thought vaguely, her eyes dropping to his lips, aware of their closeness.  
  
Xander stretched out a hand lightly, it cupped her face and long chestnut hair brushed his skin. He breathed a little quicker, not knowing what to do. Oh he wanted to kiss her but it had been so long and there had been so many things. It wasn't as though they could ever get it back. Not really. Or that it would be the same. But he wanted to kiss her, that was all. That was everything. This was now and Cordy was there in his arms and he wanted nothing more than to be here.  
  
Cordy wondered what she was doing, but for once ignored the voice that told her he was just Xander. Yeah, he was Xander and that was exactly why she wanted him to kiss her. Her hand reached for his shoulder in some signal to go ahead and kiss her. Then skin was pressing against skin and lips were bumping gently against each other, smoothing across faces until they met. I'm not delusional, Cordelia thought, her hand clinging to the fabric of his shirt as they kissed. And if this is delirium then I don't care. She ran her hand down the side of his face and forgot all about what she was supposed to do and the voices that told her what to do.  
  
His hand reached into the soft depth of her hair. It wasn't like the hard pulsating kisses with Faith or the innocent softness of Willow's lips. Neither was it like those early make out sessions in various closets. No, Xander had never kissed or been kissed like this before. There was a tenderness mingled with a wanting and a kind of sweetness. It was unfamiliar and addictive.  
  
Cordelia pulled away suddenly and looked at him. " Xander" She started to say. " What about Willow? I get that you're eighteen, of course you want to sleep with anything in a skirt. Or leather trousers. Which explains Faith. But Willow. It wasn't about sex."  
  
" Willow's my best friend and for years I saw her as just that but then suddenly I realised she was y'know, a girl."  
  
" The breasts kind of are a clue." Cordy said helpfully.  
  
He smiled. " She used to have a crush on me, you know that and I...I guess I had a crush on her too then, I finally saw her differently." Xander tried to explain.  
  
" So it was just a crush?" Cordelia asked, slightly suspicious.  
  
Xander nodded. " Which is in the past."  
  
" Okay" She said finally and kissed him again. " Think about her in that way again and I'll kill you." She said sweetly, breaking the kiss for a hearbeat and smiled at him. Xander grinned and slid an arm around her back, deepening the kiss. We won't get into the Buffy issues here Cordy thought, pressing her tongue against his. Xander really was a good kisser for someone who spent his time getting beaten to a pulp by various monsters and hanging with the bottom of the heap. She might as well get used to hanging with the bottom of the heap again though, Cordy thought resignedly. Apocalypses, vampires, having to make nice talk with Willow, the whole deal. Oh well, she had done it before.  
  
His tongue tangled with hers and Cordy rested her hand on his shoulder and finally enjoyed the delirium.  
  
Fin. 


End file.
